[governance] Apple Ends Stealth Installs Via Software Update

[yehudakatz at mailinator.com]

This is an update from Post:
Software Distribution / Turning software updating mechanisms, into a
self-serving 
http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/arc/governance/2008-03/msg00363.html

also

Related Article of Intrest:
PayPal Plans to Block Safari and Old Browsers
(See link at bottom)
--

Apple Ends Stealth Safari Installs Via Software Update For Windows 

By Paul McDougall 
InformationWeek 
April 18, 2008 04:17 PM 

Art. Ref.:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/browsers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207400701

Print:
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=207400701
-

Apple has revised the way it sends software updates to Windows PCs via its
Software Update service in response to charges that it was sneaking its Safari
Web browser onto users' desktops without their permission or knowledge. 
The latest version of the Software Update tool for Windows, version 2.1.0.110,
now clearly lists software that can be downloaded via the service and groups
the updates into those for applications already on the user's computer and
updates for new software. 

The new version of Software Update also gives users the ability to turn off the
service. 

In modifying Software Update, Apple was clearly responding to widespread
criticism that the service downloaded Safari 3.1 onto users' systems
surreptitiously. 

The company included the browser as a stealth update for users of the Microsoft
(NSDQ: MSFT) Windows versions of its iTunes and QuickTime software. Mozilla CEO
John Lilly likened the strategy to tactics used by hackers to insert malicious
code into downloads. 

"Apple has made it incredibly easy -- the default, even -- for users to install
ride along software that they didn't ask for, and maybe didn't want," said
Lilly, in a recent blog post. "This is wrong, and borders on malware
distribution practices." 

Safari competes with Mozilla's Firefox product in the Web browser market. 

Safari 3.1 has been hit with other problems since it launched in March. 

Researchers at software security firm Secunia last month reported finding two
"highly critical" vulnerabilities in the browser. 

In one instance, files with long names downloaded via the browser "can be
exploited to cause memory corruption," according to Secunia. That could result
in the host computer becoming vulnerable to arbitrary code execution -- a
situation where intruders can remotely execute commands on the targeted
machine. 

The other vulnerability lets hackers display their own content in pages loaded
into Safari 3.1 without changing what's displayed in the browser's URL address
bar. 

There's also been reports that Safari 3.1 tends to crash on computers running
Windows XP .

--
Related Article of Intrest:
PayPal Plans to Block Safari and Old Browsers

Art. Ref. :
http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_852573C4006938800025742F0061AAFF.html?ref=technology

Print:
http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_852573C4006938800025742F0061AAFF.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=print
---

-30-
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance